by Skye, Mav
Father Wraith arrived shortly after. He opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. Jenn couldn’t be sure, but she thought that might be a smile on his face. When was the last time she had seen him smile?
His phone call must have gone well.
She wanted to ask him about it, but Henrietta still snoozed, so she remained quiet.
She started the rig, and began to pull out when Father Wraith leaned over and whispered, “I can take the wheel. You’ve been at it since three.” His lips were practically touching her ear lobe, his breath warm on her skin.
Jenn turned to him, her mouth almost bumping into his. “I want to drive to Texas. You can take over then.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes roamed from her lips to her eyes, then back to her mouth. Finally, he said, “Sounds good to me.”
“Giddy up, cowboy.” She flashed him another radiant smile and keyed the ignition.
At this, he sank back into his seat, shy at the sexual reference.
She heard May say, Ride him easy. Which made Jenn bust up laughing.
Father Wraith raised an eyebrow at her.
Jenn shrugged her shoulders back at him, then shifted into drive and blasted out of the gas stall. “My sister has a dirty mind.”
He said, “She’s not the only one.”
Tony giggled in the backseat. They were on the road again, and it felt good. Jenn wouldn’t have minded settling in New Mexico, but she agreed with the priest. Texas was far larger, and therefore easier, to hide in. Close enough to Mexico if they ever had to gun it.
The possibilities were endless.
18
Texas
Henrietta awoke to the feel of warm wind on her face, the sound of Johnny Cash burning in a ring of fire, and the smell of chocolate donuts.
Her head pounded, wrist ached. Her entire body felt stiff as a scarecrow on a pole. Her head rested on a pillow against the window. Slowly, slowly… she opened her eyes.
Tony was immediately on her. “Tina! Tina! Auntie Jenn, Tina woked up!”
Henrietta scowled at Tony and closed her eyes. The back of her head pounded and ached like someone had broken a watermelon over it.
“I meant Rietta not Tina.” Tony wiped at her face with a wet cloth. “Rietta?”
At the sound of Aunt Jenn’s voice, she opened her eyes again. Jenn was twisted over the passenger seat, feeling her forehead. “Oh, honey, I’ve been so worried about you. You’ve had a fever, but I think it broke—"
“And sweating like an overrun dog!” shrieked Tony.
Henrietta locked eyes with Jenn. Something was different, but she wasn’t sure what. She could feel the pain at the back of her head, the ache and swell of her broken wrist, but when she looked at Aunt Jenn, heard her own voice, that feeling of affection was missing.
Something was different. She heard May’s voice in the back of her mind, far, far away. To survive, you must become.
She knew she had a new name now, but there was more. It was like a light flickering inside her that leaped in and out of darkness on its own accord.
She heard May’s voice again. Henrietta, you can choose when to remember and when to forget, when to feel, and when to let go.
Henrietta wrapped her arms around herself, feeling a slight chill despite the warm wind and sweatshirt.
Tony jabbered on and on. The music switched off. And Jenn was offering her something.
Henrietta said, “What?”
“Would you like a sip of juice?”
Rietta nodded and breathed in quickly at the movement. “Ow!” She touched the back of her head.
Everything turned into a flutter of chaos. She heard Jenn’s voice again commanding, directing, guiding. The car slowed. Rietta closed her eyes against the pain throbbing and pounding inside her skull.
Tony yelped like the devil.
She opened her eyes and looked over at him. They had already pulled over, and Father Wraith was lifting Tony out of the car.
“No!” she reached for Tony. “Put him down!”
And then Jenn leaned in, unbuckling Rietta's seat belt, helping her sit up, gently placing pills between her lips, then lifting a juice bottle.
Rietta could still hear Tony screaming, but at the moment she didn’t care. She gulped the sweet liquid down, lightly at first then greedily.
“Whoa, whoa, take it easy there, Supergirl.” Jenn lowered the bottle.
Henrietta opened her eyes again, feeling a bit better. Jenn was tucking her hair behind her ears. Beyond Jenn, the priest was buckling Tony in the front passenger seat. Tony had grown quiet, but he was mad as hell. “Why won’t you let me be with Rietta?”
Father Wraith whispered back. “You’ve done a good job taking care of your sister, Tony, but now it’s your Auntie’s turn.”
Tony said, “I hate you.”
The father had no answer for him. The front seat went quiet. Henrietta focused on Jenn again. Her aunt whispered and murmured in soothing tones.
Rietta felt nothing inside, but her muscles relax. Her head ached less. She let Aunt Jenn slowly adjust her so that she lay on her lap. It was much more comfortable that way. Jenn rubbed the back of her neck, the muscles in her shoulders and back.
The pain ebbed and flowed back and forth like the dark waves on a sandy shore. Finally, the pain slipped away completely. Henrietta slept again.
In her dreams, she was holding Aunt May’s hand. They walked through a meadow of daisies. Aunt Jenn sat on a blanket nearby weaving a wreath of flowers. Songbirds sang and whistled nearby, butterflies flitted about, their blue wings the same color as the heavens. The sun glowed like a juicy orange in the sky, warm and pleasant.
When May and Henrietta had walked a small distance away, Aunt May turned and glanced at her sister. She saw that Jenn was fully occupied with the flower wreath and passed a sheathed object to Rietta. A crystal handle, the butt resembling the head of a unicorn poked out of the leather.
Rietta said, “What’s this?” And gasped when she pulled the blade from its sheath. The blade, straight as an arrow, glimmered in the sunlight.
“Shhhh!” May glanced at Jenn again. “For when you need it.”
“I won’t need it.”
May said, “Yes, you will. You need to survive, Henrietta. Now, quick, hide it!” Rietta re-sheathed the dagger and shoved it into her jeans, and pulled her shirt over the top.
Jenn said, “What are you two up to over there? I sense trouble.”
May said, “Oh nothin’. We’re just playing Supergirls. Right, Rietta?” She winked at Henrietta. And Henrietta winked back. She drew her finger on the outline of the dagger’s unicorn head beneath her shirt. “Right.”
She whispered to Aunt May, “I thought you said I couldn’t be a Supergirl.”
May touched Henrietta’s chin, admiration in her eyes. “You’re more than a Supergirl. You are a survivor, Henrietta. And you are going to protect your Aunt Jenn. Do you remember your promise?”
Henrietta nodded. “I promise.”And then her aunts and the daisy meadow faded away into a dark field. She was dragging a heavy body across the clumps of grass and weeds.
She heard footsteps. She turned and saw a man in a wolf mask behind her. He held the unicorn dagger and bounded like a deer over the grass. His dark cape flew about his shoulders in the night.
She tugged and pulled at the body, but she couldn’t remember why.
The wolf man grew closer and closer.
She started crying, she couldn’t leave the body, no matter what. And when she looked down at the body, she knew why. It was Tony in his Buzz Lightyear pajamas. He was covered in blood.
“Tony!” She fell to the ground and wept over him.
When the wolf man arrived, he spoke in soothing tones. He sounded familiar.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m your brother,” he said. “Tony.” And he lifted his mask. It was Tony, and it wasn’t Tony.
Rietta cried again. “I don’t
understand. You are dead.”
But, when she looked down at the boy in the grass, he was gone. Only the wolf man, her brother, stood before her, he held the unicorn dagger (the one Aunt May had given her) in his hands.
“What are you going to do?” asked Rietta.
Tony’s lips drew up in a grin revealing long canines sharp as blades. He took another step towards her.
“No,” said Rietta, jumping to her feet. “NO!” she screamed again.
But he was too close. She didn’t have time to run. Tony thrust the dagger into her chest, then withdrew and thrust again.
“Why?” she asked as she fell to the soft grass.
“Because I can,” he replied. The dagger plunged into her, over and over. It filled the night with blood, and in the distance she could hear Tony’s innocent laugh echo in the starless night.
19
Twinkle, Twinkle
A grungy old timer sat behind the counter of Sit A Spell Motel. His cowboy hat was a greasy tan that must have seen at least a dozen years of Texas sun. He gazed Simon up and down with piercing blue eyes before spreading his long fingers on the counter, ready to make a deal. “How long ya want the cabin fer?”
Behind the cowboy, an old tube TV sat on a rusted file cabinet. John Wayne had his hands on his hips, and was giving one of his famous lines that wouldn’t cut chalk in the movie industry today.
“About a week.” Simon shifted his attention back to the old timer as the cowboy slapped a clipboard motel registry in front of Simon. “A week’ll cost ya about five hundred and twenty.” His pronunciation of hundred sounded as if a Hun and the color red got married: hunred.
“Sold.” Simon signed a false name into the motel log.
The motel was a long thick rectangle of pink stucco, about as grungy and faded as the owner’s cowboy hat. That wasn’t what Simon was interested in. Behind the motel were vacation cabins each on their own lot. They were fully furnished with mini kitchens. He’d asked around at the last gas stop, and the cashier had told him how she always took her kids to Sit a Spell on spring break. Her exact words were, “Private and cheap as spit. Some of ‘em even have lakes, but ya gotta watch out for them rattlers.”
“Uh huh.” The grungy cowboy tipped his hat back and scratched at a thin waif of hair before replacing his hat, and folding his arms. “Got kids?”
Simon said, “My family will be staying with me.”
The cowboy raised his eyebrow. “That wasn’t my question.”
Simon pulled a wad of cash from his pocket and began to count it. “Do you want the cash or not?”
The cowboy burst into laughter. “Oh yeah, I’ll take your money. You just behave yourself out there. By the looks of ya, ya belong in a Holy Roller church somewheres, not in the middle of a god forsaken place like this. Far as I know, you’re moving somethin' through here.”
Simon wanted to reach over the counter and slap the guy, but the last thing he needed was the old guy blabbing around about his suspicions. “Let’s say I was. How much would it take to keep you quiet?”
“I knew it.” The cowboy laughed again, his tan skin wrinkling with the movement. “I suppose another hunred would keep Ol’ Joe’s mouth closed.”
“Ol’ Joe?”
The old timer pointed at the name under the glass on the counter top. Ol’ Joe, Owner was carefully printed on a laminated index card. “That’d be me.”
“For a minute there, I thought you were going to ask for my soul.” Simon flipped through the bundle of cash and fished out another hundred bill when Ol’Joe said,
“Can’t sell something you don’t have.”
“Everyone has a soul, Joe.” He handed the bill over.
Joe took the cash, then grabbed Simon’s hand, and clutched it tightly for a second before shaking it. “Most do, but you’ve already sold yours, son. I can see it in your eyes.”
Simon gripped his hand back and gave it a healthy shake. “Spoken like a true devil.”
Ol’ Joe nodded. A greedy, hungry look filled his ice blue eyes. “At your service, Father.”
Simon withdrew his hand and glanced at it eerily. What have I done?
You’ll regret this.
He spun on his heel to leave.
“Oh, Father, you forgettin’ something?”
Simon turned, and Ol’ Joe tossed a key at him.
Simon caught it.
Ol’ Joe lifted his teeth in a wolf’s grin, cackling as Simon walked out. He could feel the old bastard’s eyes on his back, and he couldn’t help but think they should have kept going, pushed it all the way through to Mexico. But, the kids and Jenn were exhausted, and riding in the old rig non-stop for two days with injuries and trauma had pushed them all to their limits as it was.
They had stopped only once at a Motel 8. The kids and Jenn fell into a queen bed, and he’d taken the other. They only dared to stop for a few hours before waking the kids and getting on the road again.
They were in mid-Texas, no man’s land. They were by no means safe, but they were far away from Wasp, Colorado.
Ever since he made the phone call to the state police from the gas station, he’d felt a weight lifted from his shoulders. Five years of guilt washed away as they got further and further away from Colorado. Not just the guilt of allowing the smuggling and taking the money, but the guilt of desiring of a woman when he claimed the cross. When he removed his clerical collar, he removed himself from the duty of carrying the cross of Christ.
He broke his promise to God and the Catholic Church. And yet Simon felt that was the first honest decision he’d made, possibly in his whole life. An empty sadness still possessed him as he thought about giving up the cross, but another emotion soon became stronger. Desire. A feeling he would no longer suppress.
It was his fault that the children had been harmed. His fault that Jenn could be lying dead in a puddle of blood on the very hardwood floor that she had scrubbed with such loving care. He wouldn’t have found her for days.
The thought repulsed him. And it would have been his fault. His.
You’ll regret this.
Ol’ Joe was right. Maybe he had already sold his soul to the devil. But one thing was for sure; he’d do whatever it took to protect Jenn and the kids. He would never leave their side again. Each of their broken lives, their broken souls, were far more precious, more innocent, than his own.
In the gravel parking lot, he could hear Tony laughing. “But I like French fries… I could eat French fries forever. Hot dogs, too!”
All the windows were rolled down. The air conditioner had given out shortly after entering Texas. Simon opened the driver’s door and Jenn was saying, “Oh, no! I’m making chicken and salads tonight. Need some nutrition in those bones!” She turned to Simon. “Does the place have a barbeque?”
Simon nodded. “Yep, charcoal.”
From the back seat, Tony whined. “Aunt Jenn! I hate salad. Broccoli makes Rietta fart.”
Rietta huffed. “It does not.”
Simon smiled. Despite the arguing, he loved the sound of their voices, the sounds of a family. They were not a physical family brought together by flesh and blood, but by darkness, need and trust: a fallen priest, a psychotic whore, and two trafficked children.
God works in mysterious ways.
“When Rietta farts better not light a flame nearby. It’ll set the whole world on fire!”
“Shut the fuck up, Tony!”
“Tina!” Jenn flipped over in her seat. “Unless you want your mouth rinsed out with soap, young lady, I suggest you stop cussing. And Tony? Really?”
Tony giggled and Rietta crossed her arms and glared out the window, she said, “It’s Rietta.”
“Rietta, right, sorry.” Jenn was still perky despite the arguing. She turned to Simon as he backed out of the motel parking lot and eased onto a graveled back road that led further onto the property. “When we get to the cabin, I want to run back to that little grocery store we saw a few miles back and buy decent food.
”
“Sure, sure,” he said.
“Father?”
Simon felt his heart drop when she addressed him. How long would it take for her to see him on the same level? He wasn’t her savior. In fact, it was the other way around. “For heaven’s sake, Jenn. Call me Simon.”
Jenn said, “Damn. I keep forgetting.”
“I know. What’s on your mind?”
Jenn’s voice had taken a serious turn, the children immediately sensed this, and they were all ears. She said, “I’m curious. Where’s the money coming from?”
Simon bit his lower lip and chewed on it.
She said, “I mean, you must not make much on the church salary, right?”
He nodded. “Right.” It was something he could be truthful about. The church paid for the rectory and his telephone electric, water bills and little more. The money had come from his sins. Turning a blind eye. Bribery. He had intended to give it to the church, but instead had hidden it in a duffel bag in his closet, telling himself he’d do something good with it one day.
And he did. He’d been able to support Jenn and the kids with it, not that they required much. He had no idea how much he had, but he was guessing close to a million. Enough to keep them comfortable and set up somewhere new, even escape to Mexico if they had to.
He stuttered. “Well, um…” He felt his face turn red.
In the back seat, Tony whispered loudly to Rietta. “See, told you he was a bad man.”
Rietta’s face remained expressionless, and she stared at Jenn.
Simon glanced at Jenn to see if she heard, but she was slapping her thighs to another Johnny Cash tune on the radio. Cash sang about walking the line, which didn’t make Simon feel any better.
She turned to him. “So? How long have they been paying you off?”
“Do you need water?” She pat him on the back. “I’m just kidding, Simon! Geez, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She put a hand on his forehead. “Are you feeling ok?”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean…I think I need a nap.” She had called him Simon. Finally. And that was enough to make up for the uncomfortable subject matter.